ArcaMax

Yeah, yeah, Einstein. Smart guy. This being summer, you see his face on T-shirts, sticking out his tongue, as if to say, "Ask the guy wearing this if he can explain fractions."

Props to Albert, who did figure out everything from relativity to atoms to E=MC2. But how come Mr. Genius never bothered to explain the deepest physics mystery of all: Where does the pen on the desk go?

As an absentminded-professor type, Albie could not have been unaware of this problem. If he didn't address it, it must have been because he, too, could NOT figure it out. I mean, you're talking on the phone. You write yourself a little message on a scrap of paper: "Get Doritos for picnic," or, "Write autobiography," or, "Don't forget to call the cops about that funky-smelling duffel bag someone threw in the yard." Whatever.

You finish the call. You wander off to get a snack (now you need MORE Doritos). Your phone rings again, you go back to where you put it down on the table and -- no pen! Or no scrap of paper. Or if there IS a pen, now it doesn't write. How can it possibly be the same pen?

In the interest of science -- and matrimony, since it is hard to stay happily married when your spouse is constantly moving the pen -- I asked a handful of physicists and one persnickety professional organizer to explain: Why does stuff just disappear? And why does some of the stuff often suddenly REAPPEAR after you have either forgotten all about it or spent many, many hours hunting for it RIGHT WHERE IT SUDDENLY IS?

Explain this!!

"Einstein proposed that mass distorts space-time like a bowling ball distorts the surface of a mattress," said D.K., a professor of physics, thinking he was being helpful. This bowling ball creates a black hole, "like a newly formed blob in a lava lamp," added D.K. And this blob sucks in pens.

Or something. On second thought, maybe I shouldn't have started with the physicists.

Nonetheless, I called another one from my dark physics past (dark in that I did not take physics), and he said that in fact black holes are NOT to blame. "There is usually enough random energy around to create disorder" -- i.e., entropy, said he. "This random energy can be a breeze or a vibration, but often it takes the form of a child, spouse or pet."

A-ha! So then it IS my husband (or child or pet) who is always walking off with the pen, right?

Well, not according to the final physicist I reached out to, D.W. He blamed "what some call telekinesis." He says "advanced aliens" -- whoops, looking over my notes, I see he's also the director of a UFO organization. Well, anyway, he says these "advanced aliens" hang around, moving our pens and stuff.

But my friend Lisa, a professional organizer, shakes her head. The problem is not space-time or aliens or entropy, she chides, but that we don't pay enough attention to where we put stuff.

Yeah. Like THAT makes sense. Lisa, I pay CONSTANT attention to my stuff and in fact have just FOUND my pen, so there!

As for that lumpy duffel bag that seems to be oozing something red? It's still there too. And the cops are coming, even though I forgot to call them! Talk about the space-time continuum -- I thank my lucky pen!

It's right here! Or ... wait ...

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Lenore Skenazy is president of Let Grow, a contributing writer at Reason.com, and author of "Has the World Gone Skenazy?" To learn more about Lenore Skenazy (Lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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